


Dreams of a Wrong Turn Taken

by botgal



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Awkward Platonic Comfort, Joey dies in a dream, Nightmare death, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 21:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12517000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botgal/pseuds/botgal
Summary: Jude has a nightmare about what could have happened if Joey hadn't reached the attic.Dammek is... kind of helpful.





	Dreams of a Wrong Turn Taken

Joey gasped for ragged breath as she bolted up the stairs, eyes wide and panicked as she tried to escape the hordes of monsters scrabbling at her feet behind her. Bolting up the stairs. Around the hall. Racing up the last flight of stairs to the attic. She grabbed the key, fumbling with it to get it into the lock. But just as she got it stuck into the hole, a set of slimy dark fingers grabbed the back of her jacket.

She let out a yelp of surprise as her feet left the ground, trying to squirm out of their grip.

“No! No! Let me go! _Let me go!_ ” She yelled at the multitudinous mass of monsters gripping her limbs as they hauled her back down the stairs. Her weak kicks and shouts coming to no avail. As the parade of ravenous, eyeless mouths came to an end at the foot of the stairs, she found herself being handed off again. More arms and hands seemed to materialize beneath her, the nightmarish cacophony echoing from too many toxic green maws.

Right towards the giant, gaping maw of the big monster from earlier.

“No! No stop, please! _Please, somebody!!!_ ” She shrieked and scrabbled at the hands grasping her, tears in her eyes as the mass beneath her gave one final heave, catapulting her from their appendages and straight into the monster's mouth.

“ _JUDE!!!!_ ”

“ _ **JOEY!!!!!**_ ” The bespectacled boy nearly launched himself from his blankets with the lingering fright of his nightmare, breathing coming in a stuttered panic as he looked blindly around the area. Vision blurred from lack of glasses a muffled curse and a loud thump came from a few feet away, and Jude scrambled to find his glasses.

“What?! What's going on?! What happened?!?!” Jude finally managed to get a grasp on his eyewear and put them on his face. Though the clearer vision did nothing to help calm his frayed nerves when he saw the alien who called himself Tetrarch Dammek nearly spinning around the treehouse with a rifle in hand. “Well?! What was it?! Why are you making so much goddamn noise?!” Realizing he was being addressed, Jude cupped his palm against his still thundering heart. Trying to slow his inhales and exhales enough to speak

“I... It's nothing, Tetrarch, I... I had a bad dream. That's all. Sorry.”

“... A 'bad dream'? Are you shitting me?” Dammek's expression quickly turned annoyed as he lowered the gun he'd been waving around. “You woke up screaming over a stupid daymare?!” Jude blinked owlishly at Dammek, then glanced to a window of the treehouse, before looking back at him.

“... It's night.”

“Do you think I give a crap?!” Dammek snapped back. “I thought you said you 'trained for special ops and spy missions' up here. Are you telling me you can't go a single time sleeping without sopor slime before you wake up crying like a wiggler? What if you lured any monsters up here with all your noise?!”

“I said I was sorry!” Jude snapped back at him. “And I don't even know what sopor slime is! We humans just have nightmares sometimes. That's all that happens.”

“ _Great,_ ” Dammek groused. “Well what the hell were you even dreaming about that was so bad you were screaming like the Heiress herself was twisting a culling fork in your gut?” Jude glared up at the alien, pulling his knees up to his chest.

“... Well, not like _you'd_ know anything about worrying or caring for someone, but I had a nightmare that Joey didn't escape to the attic, and she got dragged back downstairs and got eaten by a monster.” He tensed up, willing his heating eyes not to cry. “You know, that kind of nightmare.”

“... Oh... well, shit,” Dammek mumbled. He shifted his weight between his feet, scratching one of his legs with the barrel of his (well, Pa's, really) gun. “Well, uh... you know your... sister I guess? She's not... well okay, can't say she's not _dead_ , but she _definitely_ didn't get eaten by monsters, if she was the one I saw fly by me in outer space after the secret weapon-”

“Portal,” Jude cut in.

“ _After the_ _ **secret weapon**_ got turned on,” Dammek continued emphatically. “So, you know. Always a chance, I guess. So... you know you still have the possibility to help her. _If_ we can clear that hive of yours of monsters.”

Jude pondered on his words quietly. Well, that was true. So long as he and the alien could try, they might have a chance at helping Joey, still. It was something he already well knew, but somehow hearing it aloud made him feel a bit better at least.

“... Yeah. Yeah I guess you're right,” he sighed at last, finally smiling a bit. “... Thanks, Dammek.”

“Yeah, great, you're welcome. Now go the hell back to sleep before it's time for your watch. If you're right about the activity dying out come morning, we'll need to be prepared when the time comes.”

“Yeah, I suppose you're right,” Jude sighed. He took off his glasses again and set them down, wiggling back under his blankets to settle in for however long he had. He finally managed to curl up just as he heard Dammek start his climb up the tree branches to up above.

… Which reminded him.

“Hey, Dammek?”

“ _What?_ ” He heard the alien ask back in annoyance.

“I thought I heard something fall on the floor earlier when I woke up. What was that?”  
“... Nothing. You were probably still half asleep. There was nothing that made a noise.”

“... Did you fall out of the tree when-?”

“ _Go to sleep!_ ”

 

**Author's Note:**

> For Joey and Xefros, I write cute fluff.  
> For Jude and Dammek, I write the equivalent of Dammek saying "that's rough, buddy" to Jude having a nightmare that his sister got eaten by monsters.


End file.
